I am proud to say that I am officially a Wii owner

I personally did not have any luck, but my best friends girlfriend just happened to come across one on Sunday in Kmart. I don't know about your town, but there is a walmart and a Kmart in mine and the Kmart is ALWAYS a ghostown, all business goes to evil walmart. If you walk in our local kmart there is a crazy prospector in the corner hooting and hollering ordering a sasparilla while tumbleweeds gently blow by you. Supposedly the wii had been there since friday, and no one thought to check there. I was so happy to get one and so touched that she would go through the trouble of getting one for me, that I gave her an extra $30.00 for her trouble (I gave her $300.00 even)

Time to go "wii" some more.......

Yep, had one crap out on the N64 and one on the PS1 so I've never touched one since.

Nothing worse than losing hours of gameplay.

This is not a threadcrap or bash.

I do what you do as well. Except with the 360 it's done automatically so any new music I convert or any pictures I upload are there, automatically.

I haven't changed the pictures in the Wii SD card because it's a pain to take the card out, find the reader, plug it in, put in the card, and transfer stuff. And frankly no games that I own support it in any way.

You don't really need an SD card. But if you have Excite Truck or like lots of pictures it's not a bad option. But I wouldn't call the Wii the "multimedia center" of anything in comparison to the 360, the PS3, or even an XMBC'd original Xbox.

^^^ I see what you're saying, The Bus. I haven't utilized a lot of the Wii's functions and know that I won't use a lot of the 360's when I get it because I have my home computer hooked up to my TV. While I understand others' excitement at some of the features, it's a little hard for me to get excited about putting pictures and music on a gaming console or surfing the Web on my Wii when I already have a far more capable machine with a lot more space already hooked up to my TV.

I do hope that with the Wii getting more people to surf the Web on their TVs that a serial cable plug or something along those lines becomes more standard on TVs and more people can easily hook up their real computer to their tellys.

The only accessories I have are an additional wiimote (came with Play), a GC mem card and a Wavebird for playing VC or GC games. I never got into the whole 'play your mp3s in our game!' thing, and since you can't use it as actual memory, I have no use for an SD card.
I used to do Vote every day or so, but it got kinda boring. I like the internet channel, but it's just as easy to walk seven feet to the office and get on the PC. It's a nice addition though, and I have used it more than once.
I agree, the Wii isn't a media center. It's like it wants to be, with the Channels and slideshow and card storage, but it's just not realized very well. Oh well, I still like the games

I had an extra SD card that I wasn't using. It's only 512mb, but I just have about 100 songs and a 30 or so pictures. The songs I use on Excite Truck. I don't use the photo thing much, but I may after our baby's born. It'd be fun to show people on the TV without much effort.

I have a question about Mario Party. I've never played any of the titles, but I'm interested in MP8 for the Wii. It seems like most of them have gotten pretty medicore reviews. What's the general criticism? I thought I read that the gameplay is kinda slow.

The reason I'm interested is I'm trying to find a good game to play with my wife. She likes puzzle games, board games, etc. This seemed like it might be a good 2 person title for us to play with. We're going to be having a baby soon and when the chaos dies down, we're going to be stuck in the house more and I thought this might be a good way to kill time.

What are your guy's opinions on the Mario Party titles?

Also.. why do all the old (used) ones cost so much? I've seen Mario Party 5 for $35.00 used. Ouch.

Nintendo officially states that the following games will be coming out for Wii in Japan in 2007:


Donkey Kong Taru Jet Race (DK Jet or DK Bongo Blast, US) - June 28, 2007
Wii Health Pack -- 2007
Disaster: Day of Crisis - 2007
Mario Party 8 - 2007
Project H.A.M.M.E.R. - 2007
Wii Music - 2007
Super Mario Galaxy - 2007
Super Smash Bros. Brawl - 2007
Battalion Wars II - 2007
Forever Blue - 2007
Mario Strikers Charged - 2007
Metroid Prime 3: Corruption - 2007
Mario and Sonic at the Olympics - 2007

Both Animal Crossing Wii and Hoshi no Kirby (Kirby Adventure) Wii are listed in the same documents as "TBA," or to be announced.

http://wii.ign.com/articles/784/784665p1.html

Bummer to hear nothing more about Animal Crossing but there are certainly a few titles on that list that I am more than curious about.

I bought a 2GB SD card last fall for ~$19 shipped AR. It is also useful as a spare for my digicam or in my cheapy $3 SD-card-to-thumbdrive gadget.

I like the Wii picture slideshow. It's pretty cool. I haven't bothered to sync up the 360 and my PC and transfer photos over. But I can just pop the SD card out of the camera and pop it into the Wii. Quick and simple. And the music for the slideshows is funky

I've only played a few of them, but my general impression is that the board game mode is slow and tedious. It just takes forever for anyone to get around the board and score a friggin' point. The upside, though, is that you gradually open up more and more mini-games, and the next time you play, you can just go directly to mini-game mode. Just pick your favorites from the list without having to deal with the lame mini-games or the monotony of the board game.

Which is why the first game is the only decent one in the series.

Looks like 2007/early 2008 US will be ok but not great for me.

Will definitely get:

Super Mario Galaxy - 2007
Super Smash Bros. Brawl - 2007
Metroid Prime 3: Corruption - 2007

Will look at these as I know nothing about them:

Project H.A.M.M.E.R. - 2007
Forever Blue - 2007
Disaster: Day of Crisis - 2007

The others I have no interest in.

I've looked into the Mario Party games as well, for a similar reason (except we don't have a baby coming). They're still 30-45 bucks used, which is a little much for a blind buy (although with the B2G1 sale it's a little more reasonable). Suggestions as to the best one, or just wait and check out MP8? keeping in mind I've never played one. Some of the reviews say "Very similar to the previous one", which is a nonissue for me. Players would be myself, my non-gaming wife, and a 4 year old boy (if appropriate).
Oh yeah, and there is a lot of dialog in SPM. RPG-levels of dialog.

I'd say just wait and see who the reviews on MP8 are. It's one game that I could see being more fun with the motion controls.

Since Super Mario World has been released, Actraiser is the ONE game I've been waiting for, to be released on the VC. I keep hoping, week after week, but, no luck.

Yeah, considering its only $10-15 more than the old used games. Actually I think 7 still goes for $45.

I totally agree (with StealthStratos) about the slow and tedious play. I played MP7 one time with four people (who enjoy board games and video games). I don't think we made it through the whole game--people just started walking away. The unlockable minigames may be cool, but if you are looking for minigames the Wii has lots of them. I think the games in WarioWare are very similar to the games in Mario Party. My wife, who also enjoys board games and puzzle games, has really enjoyed Wii Play. Specifically Billiards and Find Mii. A completely different approach would be to find a few good board games. Visit boardgamegeek for some ideas--there are a lot of great two-player board games out there.

We have tons of actual board games. I was looking for something on the Wii though. I guess I'll rent MP8. Or I can rent an older MP to see what I think.

Just to be a contrary opinion, my family and I love the Mario Party series, and have been buying them since the first game on the N64. Including the board game elements.

Only one we haven't bought is 7. But we'll get 8 for sure.

I have to say, my Wii play has been limited to just Super Paper Mario and a bunch of VC games over the last 2 months. Talk about a drought...

But... the old VC games are soooo goooood... must stop...

The Godfather has really changed my opinion of Wii controls in a standard game. I'm not sure who came up with the controls, but that guy should be put in charge of all Wii development for EA. They have used the motion controls well for fighting and combat, but kept them away from other parts of the game. It is a great balance and helps you enjoy the game as a Wii experience without frustrating you with overuse.

Easily the best version of this game and one of the best games on the Wii.

If Scarface can be done this well I will buy the Wii version of that as well.

agreed


I really can't say enough good things about The Godfather on the Wii

Yep. I mentioned before that the "boxing" in Godfather (i.e. beating the crap outta people) works much better than Wii Boxing. The controls on Godfather are very tight and I'd say that increase the gameplay value 2-fold. Even the free-aim shooting works well. I may very well buy the game later.

Good to know. I have a gamefly account. I may rent 7 and see what I think.